68% of Americans projected to own an iPhone by 2017

Apple’s iPhone lineup is losing ground to Android globally when it comes to smartphone market share, with the latest numbers suggesting Android’s share of the worldwide market climbed to a remarkable 81% last quarter. Meanwhile, Apple’s share of the market fell from 14.4% in the third quarter last year to 12.9% in Q3 2013. In the United States, however, a very different picture is being painted and according to new projections from Asymco analyst Horace Dediu, Apple’s lead will continue to grow in the coming years. In fact, Dediu believes that a staggering 68% of the addressable U.S. population (U.S. consumers older than 13 years of age) will own iPhones by 2017. Of course this forecast presumes nothing major will come along and rock the boat over the course of the next four years, which is obviously anything but certain.